


like the tiny slivers of glass

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [96]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky's total failure to recognize his own massive psychological progress, Dissociative Episode, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Flashbacks, Force-Feeding, Gavage, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, bad day, dissociative disorder, sometimes nothing fixes everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5003275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's voice is quiet and sad and resigned and he says, "And with how food's still . . . not getting easier, I was wondering if that was something you tried, when you couldn't get them to kill you. But I think that, considering," he goes on, "we can just go with <i>yes</i> on that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	like the tiny slivers of glass

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.
> 
> Tags should be considered content advisory.

There are bruises on his right arm, and he's ripped up two of his right fingernails in the grooves on his left. He hasn't eaten today. Hasn't drunk water either. Hasn't slept. He's sitting on the fucking floor in the fucking dining room and even the stupid kitten's given up, gone to sit on the dining-room chair with her paws tucked away. 

His feet are bare. He hates the way the fabric of the sweats touches his legs and his waist, and the way the tank touches his stomach and his back. He hates the way the air touches his arms and his throat and his shoulder. He can't even fucking tell if he's cold or not. There's too much fucking noise. 

Every fucking part of this's pathetic. He knows that. He's cowering up against the fucking dining-room wall, hungry and thirsty and tired, unwashed, and there's not even a fucking reason. Not that he can think of. Not that he can _see_. Just impulse, over and over again, over and _fucking_ over. He digs his nail into one of the hairline joins on his left arm, and knows that there's nothing. 

But here he is. Can't even fucking feed himself, fucking keep himself clean - 

Another nail catches, tears. He makes himself stop. Tries to make himself stop. Except it doesn't work: he only stops when he's looking down at Steve's hand covering his, feeling warm palm and the bottom curve of fingers against the back of his hand, fingertips against the side. He stops because Steve's hand covers his, and then after a second pulls it away. Carefully. Slowly. That's the only fucking reason. He can't make himself. 

At least two of his torn nails are bleeding. The blood gets on the heel of Steve's hand. Smears. 

Bucky looks at him, at Steve, and he's waiting. It's not fair, it's fucking insulting, it's another proof of everything that's fucking _wrong_ with him that he does this, but Bucky still sits there, his head full of dull scratching and his own pulse, and waits for this to be the moment that Steve gets wise. That Steve figures it out. Gets a fucking clue. 

Realizes that whatever Bucky might have been he's dead weight now, rotting away, dragging behind him and spreading decay on everything he touches. 

He hates himself for thinking that. He hates himself for _accepting_ that, for giving up, for lying here like a beaten dog in its own filth and just _knowing_ that. Not doing anything about it. Not _fixing_ it. Not crawling over broken glass to be better. Like he can't even fucking manage that. 

Steve lets Bucky's hand rest on his knee, palm up. Opens up the size-up bandaids from their little sterile packaging and folds one after the other over the top of Bucky's two bleeding fingers, and then wraps another one around to make sure the first one stays in place. Wipes his hand on his jeans. When he's done he balls the garbage paper up into one crumpled mass and puts it on the chair beside the stupid kitten, who's just sitting there, not doing anything. She stretches out her neck, sniffs at the paper, and then bats it off the chair onto the floor. 

Steve puts Bucky's right hand between his, palm to palm and palm to back. Bends his head and kisses the side of it, at the root of Bucky's thumb. His face is an open book, like always, heart proudly pinned on his fucking sleeve, and sometimes Bucky thinks that might fucking kill him by drowning him in shame, for what he is, and how much he doesn't fucking deserve it. 

Another fucking thing he's crazy about. Like the list needs to be longer. 

"You shouldn't do this," he says, aloud. It comes out in Russian. Fucking words. Languages. Poison, all of it. 

Steve says, "Come sit somewhere more comfortable with me," same language, like that's an answer. 

Bucky laughs. Sort of. It's. . . .it scrapes its way out of his chest, his throat, leaves pain behind. "Fuck, Steve, how long are you going to fucking do this?" English. He thinks - maybe? Fuck, fuck _him_. He can't tell anymore. The shapes of thoughts get shoved into noises, vomited up from who the fuck knows where in his skull in his head, fuck. 

"However long I need to," Steve says. Fuck him, too. Fuck both of them. No. That's wrong - _fuck_ he hates this. And fuck, Christ, _Steve_ , just - 

_\- just shoot me just fucking make it stop, cut my fucking throat just_ stop _Steve why are you fucking wasting your time -_

"You know that," Steve says, more words, even and calm. Bucky digs the heel of his hand into his eye, makes the noise like a laugh again. Fuck. 

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I do." 

Steve reaches out with one hand to push Bucky's hair back out of his face, and Bucky pulls away before he can think about it because he doesn't _want_ to, and he is so fucking _fucking_ tired of that meaning nothing. So fucking tired of him _self_ , the total _shit_ \- 

"Fuck, Steve," he says, "I'm - " 

Steve cuts him off with, "My best friend. The other half of me." The corner of his mouth quirks up. "A jerk who cheats at poker." 

It's an out. Maybe. Something that means this can go somewhere else, except it probably won't work. Bucky lets the back of his head hit the wall. "I do not fucking cheat at poker," he says, trying: he can hear how tired his fucking voice is, though. How dull it sounds. Steve gives him a very solemn, one hundred percent artificial look. 

"Yeah I'm still not sure I believe that," he says. 

Bucky closes his eyes, snorts softly. Starts to feel the headache well up and push the edges of the background soreness of everything and force its way into his fucking conscious thoughts. It snakes around the back of his head to dig into the space behind his jaw, over his eyebrow, behind each ear. 

"Bucky," Steve says, quietly. When Bucky opens his eyes, Steve's still wearing his fucking heart-on-sleeve earnest bullshit look, and he says, "It's okay. It's just a bad day." 

The spreading ache gets run through with threads of something ugly, hot and nauseous. "It's just _every_ fucking day," he starts. 

"That's not true," Steve interrupts and Bucky covers his face with his right hand. 

" _Fuck_ , Steve - " 

"It's not," Steve insists. Bucky digs his thumbnail in the space over the bridge of his nose - one of the nails he hasn't ripped half off, yet, still enough there to dig into the skin. 

"It's _enough_ ," he tries, and drops his hand to his lap when Steve interrupts that, too. 

"For what?" he demands. "To have it be a God-damn misery that they happen? Yeah, okay. I'll give you that." 

The headache digs into Bucky's temples, feels like it's settling into his fucking skull. "You know for what, Steve." But Steve shakes his head, because Steve's fucking . . .

"No," he says. "I don't. And yeah," he adds. "I'm gonna be real stubborn about that one." When Bucky looks away, he repeats, "Come sit with me somewhere more comfortable." 

And fuck, he feels like a petulant child. Somewhere in his head he knows this is stupid, completely fucking stupid, all of it's stupid: there's no reason _not_ to get up there's no reason not to go sit somewhere else and by resisting he's just making everything _worse_ , making it harder, except he can't stop, he can't do it, because he's not, it's not allowed - 

Because it's saying he has a right - 

Because it means - 

He _can't_. 

When the back of his head hits the wall it sends a little pulse through the headache. Tiny. Distraction, for a minute, from the shit he can't even fucking shape thoughts around, and what he wouldn't _fucking_ give for a way to dig it all out of his skull. Everything. Start over. 

Except oh wait, he thinks, they fucking _did_ that already. See how well that fucking turned out. 

Steve's moved. Rolled forward over one knee and turned himself to sit with his back against the wall. Beside Bucky instead of in front of him. He reaches over to rest a hand on Bucky's knee, ignores the flinch, and then tugs, softly. "C'mere," he says, and fuck it's almost, _almost_ enough and fuck _fuck_ he wants to, but - 

"There's no fucking way that's more comfortable for - " Bucky starts. He pinches the bridge of his nose. 

"C'mere," Steve says, right over top of him, "your head hurts." 

Bucky snaps, "How do you even fucking _know_?" and Steve shrugs. 

"Lucky guess," he retorts. "Look, you're already exhausted, hungry, thirsty and completely fucking furious with yourself, how much worse can it be?" 

Bucky strangles the urge to snarl, or to turn and put his left hand through the wall, or anything else; watches his left hand close itself into a fist instead and bites out, "You know _exactly_ how _fucking_ much worse." 

And Steve says, quietly, "Yeah. I do." 

It's quiet, but it isn't . . .there isn't, it's like he's making a point instead of an admission, and after a minute where he doesn't say anything more, Bucky looks at him. Steve shrugs again. 

"You're right," he says. "I know exactly how much worse it can be. And right now it isn't. Which is pretty God-damn impressive, to be honest, considering the shit your head's thrown at you this week, so . . . trust me," he finishes. "And c'mere. It's fine." 

And if Bucky's head hurt less it might not work. But it doesn't hurt less and the longer it doesn't fucking hurt less the more there's something underneath everything else, maybe, stupider and simpler, that thinks making it maybe hurt less is worth a lot. Maybe a whole fucking lot. 

He rubs the side of his forehead with his left wrist, feels the overlap in the metal scrap lightly at his skin and closes his eyes. Starts, "Sorry - " 

"Yeah," Steve says, "you don't need to be." 

It's like trying to use a fucking rope to haul a tank; Bucky tries anyway, unconvincingly, with, "Could you stop fucking cutting me - " 

"Nope," Steve says, and then looks innocent when Bucky pushes himself away from the wall enough to give him a pathetic fucking imitation of a level look. Then Bucky covers his face with his left hand for a second. Feels the coolness against his temple and the hinge of his jaw. 

He says, "Fuck, Steve," and Steve reaches out to catch his left hand this time, pulling carefully but steadily on it. 

"Yeah," Steve says. "I know." 

Bucky gives in, as much as he can: moves over to in front of Steve, where Steve can easily rest his hands on his shoulders and neck, even if he can't quite close the distance entirely. He's not exactly _surprised_ when Steve slides one hand up his neck and murmurs _Jesus_ , finds something more than the normal steel-wire tension. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth behind his teeth, tries to force his jaw to relax, as much as he can. 

They sit for a while, neither of them saying anything. The pressure of Steve's fingers on Bucky's neck and shoulder and the back of his skull are probably a little closer to pain than he should be letting them get, and that's probably a bad idea not to mention, if Steve figures it out he'll be upset, but it's . . . distraction, louder than the bullshit in his head for now, so he doesn't say anything. 

The kitten gets down off the chair and comes over to climb onto his leg and then stand up with her paws on his left shoulder, mewing accusingly. "Yeah, shut up, fuzzy idiot," Bucky tells her in Russian, on reflex, but he reaches over to scritch the top of her head. "Like your life is so hard." 

He hears Steve breathe a laugh, and the kitten pulls herself up further so she can bump her head against Bucky's chin, before she decides maybe not being a needy baby is okay and she can just cat-loaf on his leg for a while. 

 

And after a while, Steve's hands sort of slowly go still and he rests one on Bucky's right shoulder, drops the other. "I want to ask you something," he says, quietly. 

It kind of feels like Bucky _should_ tense, but - fuck, he's tired, he feels like he collapses a little instead. Rubs over his eyes with his right hand, rests his left on the cat. "Well that sounds like this is gonna be fun," he manages to say, feeling his mouth twist up. Steve's thumb circles the top of Bucky's spine and Bucky can hear him sigh. The kind that most people can't hear, the kind where you keep your throat and everything open enough that if you keep the sigh small, the air doesn't hiss against your mouth or your nose. 

"Yeah, probably not," Steve admits, soberly. There's a beat and then he says, "I'm not gonna get into why it came up, wasn't exactly a fun conversation anyway, but I ended up talking to Bruce about . . . " he lets go of a breath and goes on, "hunger strikes, responses to that." 

And it's funny. 

Well. 

It's almost funny. How it feels like something goes cold. 

How five fucking words and it feels like there's ice, half-slush, slurry of ice and filthy water, forcing its way under his skin where it shouldn't be, starting at his throat and his wrist and his gut. Like it's seeping in underneath, pushing between his skin and everything else, like he . . . can't feel the world right, like his skin isn't his anymore even though he's right here and its right fucking there, still stuck to him, wrapped around. 

Steve's hand moves from Bucky's shoulder to the space between his shoulder-blades and now the contact's . . . bad, wrong, nauseous, but he can't move away from it right now - 

Steve's voice is quiet and sad and resigned and he says, "And with how food's still . . . not getting easier, I was wondering if that was something you tried, when you couldn't get them to kill you. But I think that, considering," he goes on, "we can just go with _yes_ on that." And after a second, he lets his hand fall. And - 

( - _there's the drug there's always the fucking drug makes the fucking world spin means his body doesn't work doesn't do what he wants, too slow too weak and fucking irony there fucking hysterical irony you could laugh until you choked on it, all the work, everything done to make the sack of meat and bone and metal he can't get free of into what it is except they have to take it away before they can fucking -_ )

Bucky doesn't . . . remember standing up. But he's up now, on his feet now. The kitten's in his left hand and he puts her on the back of the futon because she . . . shouldn't touch him right now - 

( - _restraints - wrist forearm upper arm ankle shin thigh waist throat head - fingers digging pushing into his jaw, hinge, force his teeth apart enough to slide metal in -_ )

( _\- "You fucking break anything_ you _can explain to Zola why - " "- well what does he fucking_ expect _?"_ )

He doesn't want . . . to be here? He doesn't want to be anywhere, doesn't really want to _be_ , he knows that, and something . . . something's gone wrong and he reaches out to touch the wall to make sure it's still there - 

( _\- tube slides down the back of his throat; he gags, can't breathe, gags again until it's down, can't breathe until it's down -_ ) 

" _Bucky_ ," Steve says, reaches out to grab his shoulder; he flinches away and then the wall's against his back and he's in the hallway, somehow. 

And Steve says, "Bucky, stop. Please. You're gonna fall over, you need to sit down. Now. Please." 

Fuck. He's in the hall, he lost the time from standing up to getting here, it didn't . . . _write_ itself, and the fucking hall isn't steady except he knows that has to be him, his brain, his _fucking_ head and Steve's right and he'd drop, except Steve says _whoa_ and catches his arm, arms, both arms, and makes it so he slides slowly down the wall instead. 

Slower. Slower down the wall. 

He sits and he digs his right fingers at his jaw, his neck, tries to dig out the feeling of hands and metal until Steve's catching _his_ hands again, saying, "Hey - I get why you're doing it but you're gonna hurt yourself, Buck, stop. Please." And he tugs Bucky's hands away. 

Bucky catches Steve's wrist, when Steve starts to let his hand drop. He only barely flinches when Steve gets the point, rests his fingers against the side of Bucky's neck and then uncurls them so he can run his palm down to Bucky's collar-bone and back. It's . . . better. 

Steve sits all the way down on the floor, moves close enough that he can slide his hand around to the back of Bucky's head, and Bucky takes the hint this time, rests his forehead on Steve's shoulder. He can do that. He can do a lot, maybe, to keep Steve's hand at his throat and the back of his neck, instead of the ghost of someone else's. He can taste bile at the back of his throat, and blood in his mouth - he bit the inside of his cheek, or something. Fuck. 

He can feel the tube in his throat even though it's not there, sinus-throat-stomach and it makes him want to gag. But Steve's hand's the one touching his throat, now. Not theirs. Steve's fingers on his jaw, his neck. Right now. 

Not theirs. 

And Steve says, "I'm sorry," and it's - 

He doesn't mean to jerk back, jerk himself away and up, into the wall, doesn't mean to snarl, "Will you fucking _stop_ \- " it just, there's no thought, it just happens, and he manages to stop, to choke it off, to pull himself back from that, from all of it, pull in and he tries not to look at Steve, at startled face widened eyes and fuck just stop, just _stop_ if his head would just stop. Just stop. If he could just stop. 

It's hard to breathe. 

"Sorry," he says. He's looking at the floor. He knows. Knees are pulled up, now, left arm across his chest staring at the floor because he can't look - "Just. Fuck. Don't - stop apologizing," and he is not, he is not going to lose the fucking hallway, the world, here and now he is _not_ and it's important but - 

_Stop it stop being sorry fucking_ stop _you fucking had to ask you know that_ stop _what do you fucking think you could do, wait? Wait till fucking_ when _it's never going to be okay_ I'm _never going to be okay it's never going to be better there is never going to be anything you can -_

Like a razor turned sideways, scraping across his brain, over every fucking nerve. 

If it would just stop - 

After a second Steve says, "You first." 

And it's funny, his voice says something's funny but it takes Bucky a second to figure it out, to run back over all the words he said and see the joke. And it is funny. Fuck, it is, even if the only sound he can make is rasping and it hurts his upper chest to get it out. He rests his forehead on the heel of his hand. 

"Christ," he says, and Steve settles back on the floor beside him, eases, unwinds from the tension of not knowing what the fuck Bucky's going to do, unwinds from waiting for it to go all fucking wrong. Steve settles back beside him, turned sideways to the wall, and when he reaches over to pull Bucky in Bucky lets him. Doesn't fucking care, except that's a lie, he cares, he cares it's like acid inside his ribs but he doesn't care enough, doesn't, however fucking pathetic it is better Steve's hands on his arm, on him, instead of memory. The acid can burn him fucking hollow; it's better. 

It's done. He knows. Thinks that. Doesn't think this is done. The edge is too close in his head. Doesn't want it. Never wanted _any of this_ \- 

"Fucking _Christ_ , Steve," he says, out loud, "you should just shoot me." 

"Yeah," Steve says, drawling out the word, "that's not happening." Some kind of fucking call and response. 

His hand cradles the back of Bucky's head. Bucky can smell his skin and whatever the fuck is in the shit Romanova left and somehow she fucking managed something that almost makes Steve's skin smell more like him and fuck he's going to drown her in the fucking river one of these days. Maybe after he drowns himself. He can smell Steve's skin. Feel it, warm, against his. Just in places. 

They stay there for a while, long enough for the stupid kitten to come butt her head against Bucky's ankle. 

In the end Steve says, "You need a bath," and as Bucky sits up he adds, "I know _you_ think you need a bullet to the head, but I'm not getting one of those. But bath, I can do." 

Bucky leans against the wall. His head's. . . light. Probably not a good sign. "You're fucking hilarious," he says, and sighs. Scrubs his hand over his face, tries to get rid of . . . everything. It doesn't really work. "But you're probably right." 

He doesn't move, though, not right away, just stares at the other wall; it's not thinking, he can't fucking think, it's just . . . .the seeping rotting grey in his head, knowing without thinking. 

Steve says, quietly, "At least we know." And it's true and Bucky gives him a twisted look anyway. 

"You think that's gonna fucking make it better?" he asks, and it's cynical and sour and he kind of hates himself for it and he asks it anyway; Steve shrugs with one shoulder. 

"Make it make more sense?" he says. And Bucky sighs. 

"Yeah, I guess," he admits. 

Steve stands up, leans on the wall and offers Bucky a hand to pull him up, too. 

 

Getting clean maybe helps, but he doesn't want to sit in any kind of water; he runs enough to wash and then empties the tub, dries off, gets dressed again. 

He should eat, but there aren't enough fucking words in any language he knows for how much that isn't going to happen. He ends up standing in the bedroom doorway, one hand on the doorjamb, staring at the ground until Steve comes back down the hall. 

Steve asks, "Going somewhere?" and Bucky makes himself stop staring through the floor, look up. 

"Hell," he says, mouth twisting at one corner. "Express train." 

"C'mere instead?" Steve says, and it's easier just to follow him to the bed, to lie down and let Steve pull him over to rest his head on Steve's shoulder, left arm across his ribs. Steve's started pulling history books off the stupid audiobook site and this time he puts on something about Mongol queens. The kitten jumps up on the bed. 

It doesn't actually make Bucky feel better. But maybe it'll keep all the shit in his head from getting worse. 

He listens to Steve breathe, his heartbeat, the voice of the audiobook a mass of words he can't derive meaning from. Steve touches his neck, shoulder, back. Maybe he understands that. 

"We'll figure it out," Steve says, eventually. And Bucky tries to pull his head out of the half-fog, enough to make sense of it and maybe answer. 

Ends up saying, "Guess one of us has to be the deluded optimist."

"And it's sure as Hell never been you," Steve agrees. And it's not really true, but that's not the point.

"Yeah, well," Bucky replies, "you're so good at it." 

"Yeah, shut up," Steve says, "jerk." 

And Bucky doesn't say anything, because the tightness in his throat and his chest aches and it hurts and he'd rather it just fucking hurt than feel anything else anyway, so fuck it. Steve's fingertips are tracing the skin from Bucky's jaw to the top of his spine and maybe that's all he gives a fuck about right now. For a while. 

Please, God, Christ, just for a while.


End file.
